Israel Completes Pullout Ahead of Schedule

SANUR, West Bank – Completing an emotional pullout unmarred by serious violence, Israeli soldiers and police officers finished their evacuation of 25 settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Tuesday and said all settler homes would be reduced to rubble within 10 days.

Israeli officials and commanders have insisted that the evacuation of nearly 10,000 Israelis from all of Gaza and four settlements on the West Bank was providing a “hand to a brother,” not warfare at all. But its rapid conclusion in six days, after predictions of three weeks or more, took Israel by surprise and seemed a softer version of the Six-Day War of June 1967, when Israel won a lightning victory over Arab foes.

It was in that war that Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and began building settlements for strategic, religious and economic reasons.

President of Medgar Evers College Honored

Yesterday the 2 camps Lubavitcher Yeshiva and Oholei Torah day camp took advantage of the beautiful weather and had a concert/rally outside Lubavitcher Yeshivas building on Crown Street.

The singing rabbi, R. Chaim Fogelman was the concert and the children danced at times to his music, and a community award was presented for “Outstanding Community service” to the president of the Medgar Evers Collage, Dr. Edison Jackson.

Dr. Jackson had arranged for the Lubavitch Yeshiva day camp to use the college’s pool throughout the summer.

R. (Col.) Goldstien presented Dr. Jackson the community award.

Lubavitcher Yeshiva – Chovevai Torah’s Shluchim List

Chovevai released the list of Bocurim that are being sent on Shlichus to various Lubavitch Yeshivas around the world. This year its to 4 places, Argentina, Brazil, Kharkov and Toronto.

Yet Another Fight Outside 770

At about 12:15am Monday night, Crown Heights Shomrim were called to respond to a violent situation at the entrance of the world Chabad Lubavitch headquarters, at 770 Eastern Parkway.

Upon arrival at the scene, Shomrim found two men arguing with a weapon found to be a pocket knife.

The two men were separated from each other as the members of Shomrim investigated as to what had happened.

Apparently, one of the men, who is black, had come to 770 to sell merchandise when a French Jewish man lost his “cool” because he did not want the man selling the merchandise inside the Shul. And so a fight broke out. That’s when Shomrim were called.

Relocated evacuees see themselves as refugees

When the bus that took them from Neveh Dekalim stopped in Ashkelon, police escorted the women, children and men into the gas station’s rest room. When they arrived at their hotel in Jerusalem, police escorted them inside. “As if we were criminals,” said Dror Vanunu, director of the Fund for Development of Gush Katif. Vanunu is a soft-spoken man, but his message was sharp, reflecting the general sentiment among the evacuees from the Gaza Strip, who have been put up at 25 hotels around the country.

Throw the Jew down the well

The people of Israel were cursed by foolish and evil rulers long before Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with that late, great man of peace, Yasser Arafat. Time and time again, the Old Testament pronounces judgment on the kings of Israel with words that rumble like an ominous drumbeat: “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.”

More Jewish, less Israeli

Were it not for his age (he is already 60), Yohanan Ben-Yaakov could have been a “poster boy” for the classical-official religious Zionism that was once the partner of all Israelis. At least this seems true when one looks at his biography: He was born in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion before the 1948 War of Independence, the descendant of a family all of whose members, except for his father and uncle, were exterminated in the Holocaust. His father and uncle were killed in the battles for Gush Etzion in the War of Independence (he eventually chose the name “Ben-Yaakov” after his late father, Yaakov Klapholtz), and he became the scion of the family. In 1967, Ben-Yaakov was part of the first group of Kfar Etzion “natives” who returned to reestablish their community – not before confronting Hanan Porat and others, and insisting that they not establish it on their own initiative, but only after an official government decision was taken (which it eventually was) in favor of such a move.

Yidstock ’65 In Pictures

A goodbye to Gaza

Settler from Brooklyn rages at being thrown from her beloved home

I set the table with my best china. The guests were not invited, but I knew they were on their way.

When the Israeli Army soldiers showed up at my door Thursday, I told them I had cooked for them, expecting them to take seats and join my family.

But they had other plans. The soldiers led my family from the Gaza home we have known for 29 years straight to a bus, which delivered us to a tent city at the Western Wall.

So today, I am a refugee in my own country. As the 80 families of Netzer Hazani, Gaza Strip, approached the tent camp, we ripped our shirt collars as a sign of mourning.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s order to dismantle 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four small ones in the West Bank after a 38-year occupation has forced me to leave the home I have known since 1976.

The evacuation is immoral and unnecessary. I do not believe that it will bring peace.

Keeping Shabbat: Lessons from an evening of ritual observance

As sunset approached Friday, we watched men dressed in black and wearing yarmulkes, symbols of humility, coming from all directions along Blanco Road in north San Antonio, a neighborhood that is home to many of the city’s Orthodox Jews.

Women walked alongside the men as the workweek ended and the seventh day, the day that for 3,000 years has been the Jewish day of rest, approached.

The area also is home to Chabad Lubavitch of South Texas, a place of faith and learning where Rabbi Chaim Block serves as executive director. Block was a member of the Express-News’ 2002 advisory board, and since then has remained a friend and one of many links connecting our newsroom and the city’s Jewish community.

Monika, my wife, and I were among three couples who arrived in vehicles at the gracious Block home, which the rabbi shares with his wife, Rivkie, and their eight daughters and one son. It becomes a home to many more each Friday night as the Blocks prepare to keep Shabbat with an extended meal that must take all day to prepare.

Jewish rage

Murdered Israelis seldom make the news, even when entire families get wiped out and even after infants in their cribs are shot at point-blank range.

On December, 7. 1993, an African American gentleman named Colin Ferguson stepped into a car of the Long Island Railroad during rush hour, took out a pistol and sprayed enough bullets to kill six passengers. Eventually, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

‘Why I’m glad I’m not Jewish’

“Last week, while observing the Gaza pullout, Laurence Simon had a remarkable insight. Let me see if I can paraphrase it here.

Known Muslim terrorists flee into a Muslim house of worship. Solution: surround it, negotiate, bring in terrorist-sympathizers to try to lure them out.

Known Muslim terrorists flee into a Christian house of worship. Solution: surround it, negotiate, agree to let them leave the country freely.

Known Jewish non-terrorists occupy a Jewish house of worship in protest for being forced to move as part of a plan to make a territory Judenrein, as part of the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza strip: send in soldiers and haul them out physically.

Visiting Day 2

Sunday (today) is the 2nd and last visiting day of the summer for campers in CGI NY and Montreal.

Visiting hours for CGI NY are from 12:00pm to 7:00pm

Visiting hours for CGI Montreal are from 2:00pm to 6:30pm

CGI NY will have a petting zoo for the visitor’s enjoyment.

The weather forecast for today is partly cloudy and a high of 84′, should make out for a nice visiting day.

Oholei Torah finds replacement for R. Piekarski

As reported that the longtime dean of Oholei Torah, R. Efraim Peikarski has stepped down, and will aid in finding a replacement. So one has been selected, R. Choni Leshes.

R. Leshes is one of the existing Mashgichim in the Bais Midrash and he will take on R. Piekarski’s place while R. Piekarski will be helping R. Leshes and he will no longer be there full time.

Yidstock Today!

What Britanica Has To Say About Lubavitch

Lubavitch a branch of Hasidism, which itself is a very orthodox movement of Judaism; founded 1798 in Lyubavichi, Belarus, by Rabbi Schneur Zalmon; led by a succession of rabbis, all outstanding scholars of the Torah; seventh rabbi was Menachem Schneerson (born 1902) of Brooklyn, N.Y.; known for definite political, as well as religious, views and strong influence on Israeli politics; worldwide…

Ed Note: There is more but to view it it costs… :-)

Israeli Settler Violence
Exposes Jewish Fundamentalism

After reading the article below I decided to type my own rant, however there are so many points to argue, I am afraid I will miss something, so I will just let you guys/gals take advantage of our comment section and type your own rant, rant away.

“The biggest story this summer out of Israeli-occupied Palestine is the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Last week, Israel began its scheduled withdrawal of all 8,000 Jewish settlers from the 40 percent of Gaza they have been illegally occupying for 38 years, as well as the soldiers who have been there to protect them.